High Treason with National Resources

In governing game, when it comes to corruption, no government wants to stay behind in Pakistan. Every government tries to over achieve than any previous governments, seems like, among them, high and more complex and successful corruption is the only way to highlight their progress among their competitors. They judge each other by the criteria of how better they manipulatively governed, controlled circulation of money, delayed national interest projects, disrespected national interest over party interest and spent national resources on petty jobs and projects while earning commissions out of these at the same time.

Infrastructure: It has been highlighted throughout the media that Punjab government has spent about Rs. 30 Billion on the Lahore Metro-bus project-experiment, and is planning to spend more chunk of 30 Billions on the same projects in other cities of Punjab, like Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan, etc. The money would be provided by the Punjab government. The Punjab government is not kind enough to listen any argument or critic on these unnecessary projects, arguing that these projects will be funded by Punjab government and are not a burden on Federal government. – What a pathetic argument. – Where did these funds come from, they have come from the Federal government, and the Federal government sucked out these funds from common citizens, the common tax payers. The tax payers are not from a single city but also from other cities of Punjab, so there is no justification that their hard earned money would be spent on a few specified cities of the province just because some numb skull ruling person wants to fulfil his last wish of life, to make his city modernised. Nothing remarkable has been achieved out of this bus project except transporting people from one place to another with a little glamour.

On the other side, if we see the plight of Pakistan Railway, its deteriorating day by day, nothing has left except wreck and ruins. Railway Stations present the picture of horror movie sets, or like some ruined place after war.

If half of the amount of these fancy metro-bus projects has been spent on the uplift of Pakistan Railway in maintenance of tracks, bridges, trains, locomotives, signals, the public would have benefited greatly. It will be a huge development, and the change will be noticed throughout the country. The other provincial governments will also adopt this trend and upgrade their Railway infrastructure in their provinces. No need to call and beg from Federal government, each province can make their Railway better by themselves, and in the end the whole country’s Railway setup will be back on track. A country wide healthy railway infrastructure will benefit the whole country and will boost our national economy.

Health: Citizens can give their best progress if they are healthy, both mentally and physically, but everybody knows the plight of government hospitals in Punjab. Almost 90% population of our province cannot afford to go to private hospitals. And government hospitals are full of all kind of medical mafias, involved in sale of fake drugs, illegal drugs and organ theft.

A political advisor of Federal government makes a routine official visit to Faisalabad Civil Hospital, traveling from Lahore to Faisalabad on a chartered helicopter, costing Pakistan government Rs. 25 Million in this trip. No higher authority took any action of this unjustified spending. – A distance which can easily be covered by Imported Government Property luxury vehicle in mere 3 hours was travelled by a chartered aircraft, cost national treasury a great fortune. – What else is called robbery, this is exactly a robbery of national resources.

This Rs. 25 million could be used for development of government hospital in Faisalabad or on any other health care development project.

Education: Other countries are investing more and more in education sector. They know that a strong educational setup will not only benefit local students and polish the local talent but will also attract the foreign students, which will eventually bring more and more foreign reserves into the country.

Our Punjab government was so concerned about improving education setup in the province that when a European university showed their interest in setting up a big campus of their university here in Punjab, the government so discouraged them by every possible way that after waiting for 4 years for proper permission and support they finally cancelled their decision of installing the campus in our province and transferred the whole project to Punjab of India. There goes all the expectations of Pakistani students and the better educational future of Pakistan.

Energy: The world is moving toward better, more economical and more efficient methods of acquiring energy, and we are moving backward to more traditional and sort of ancient methods of acquiring energy. Electricity crisis in Pakistan is the most highlighted topic from last 10 years. The government has started a new project inviting private sector to invest in their fossil fuel powered electricity generation power plants, running on coal and oil.

Why coal and oil, just because the fossil fuel power plant manufacturers offer good commission on purchasing and supporting their manufactured machinery. And what these plants give in return, expensive electricity, huge carbon foot prints, bad effects on environment and eventually to citizens’ health, more demand of cutting forests, decline in industrial growth due to increasing production cost, etc.

This private sector initiation program could be started for investing in power generation projects of economical methods, like Hydro power, Wind power, Nuclear power, etc. Alone Hydro power sector has so much potential that there will be no need to go for Nuclear power projects. The world’s most famous network of canals of Punjab can make enough cheap electricity to power the whole province. And other bigger projects of large & small Dams, Barrages and Headworks can make sufficient energy for the rest of the country. We can even export the electricity to needy neighbouring counties like Afghanistan.

In agriculture sector, there are about 1 million tube wells in Pakistan, out of which 70% run on Diesel and 30% run on electricity. If a normal tube well is converted over to solar power, an estimated amount of Rs. 3,14000 can be saved annually. Just imagine if all of the 1 million tube wells would be converted to solar energy, how much electricity can be saved and how much revenue can be saved which can be utilized for better agriculture facilities, turn barren land into fertile, develop better crops, improved irrigation system, etc.

Since most of the agriculture infrastructure exists in Punjab, the Punjab government can take the initiative and start this project at provincial level, and then other provinces will automatically adopt it.

A common man always purse to develop his position and adopts modern methods at his own risk and investment. Most of the development we see in our country has come to reality by the initiation of common man. If this enthusiasm get the support of government, we can definitely mark our name in the list of developed nations. Hope someday the government will also be vigilant enough to think positively and constructively.

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Tags: corrupt railways, energy crisis, pakistan, pakistan corruption, pakistan hospitals, pakistan media

Category: Socio Political